Total War Warhammer 3 patch 5.3 brings reworks, new units and items, and a sale

With Total War Warhammer 3 now fully revitalized after some big stumbles at the start of 2024, developer Creative Assembly is continuing to deliver additional updates for the colossal strategy game and its ambitious, trilogy-combining Immortal Empires mode. Total War Warhammer 3 patch 5.3 is the latest such installment, and it brings some key reworks to the Ogre Kingdoms alongside a new Vampire Counts unit, more magic items, and several other welcome campaign and interface tweaks.

It’s been nice to see Total War Warhammer 3 re-stake its claim as one of the best Warhammer games on PC. Recent reviews are back up to a much healthier looking 86% positive, and at an overall rating of 69% it’s on the brink of escaping that dreaded ‘mixed’ designation. This latest update looks to build on that, and begins with reworks to the Ogre Kingdoms ahead of Golgfag Maneater’s arrival as one of three upcoming Total War Warhammer 3 legendary lords.

CA’s plan is to create “the first proper mercenary faction in Warhammer 3” with Golgfag’s arrival, so it’s making some big changes now to get the ball rolling. The Ogre mercenary cap per army is raised from one to three, and mercenary pools now replenish at a rate of one unit per five turns. You’ll also find more units available to hire at Ogre camps in general, with their quality affected by the tier of the camp in question.

The contracts system for the Ogre Kingdoms has been renamed to ‘bounties’ in order to avoid confusion with the Golgfag-specific ‘mercenary contracts’ arriving with his DLC. You no longer need to claim one bounty per ten turns, but instead will be given three at once, all of which will be active simultaneously. Complete any of them, cancel it, or let it expire, and it will be replaced with a fresh bounty on the next turn.

The Vampire Counts have a new unit: halberd-wielding Grave Guards. These are designed to fill the gap between cheap skeleton spearmen and Blood Knights, and “enjoy spectacularly high weapon strength for a halberd unit, although their generally low skill statline and lack of a shield makes them less an armor-piercing generalist frontliner and more of a dedicated monster-hunting unit.”

There’s a host of additional items to discover in patch 5.3 – 16 generic items, which include some much-needed options for ranged characters, and six unique magic items, which CA describes as having “more strange and powerful effects.” All of these can be snagged as post-battle loot for all factions; even the new unique items are up for grabs, a change CA says it’s in the process of experimenting with.

Elsewhere, there are lots more helpful adjustments. A new ‘research overflow’ mechanic will ensure that any surplus research points left at the end of a project are applied to the next technology you pursue. This means upgrading your research speed will actually have a noticeable impact in the long-term, even if some projects take the same number of turns to complete. Movement range is now shown as a numeric value rather than a percentage, to make calculations clearer.

Tree clusters across 46 battle maps have been replaced with “more natural-looking forests that enhance visual appeal and improve gameplay.” Slaanesh’s ‘summon disciple army’ button now has a confirmation window to ensure you don’t use it accidentally, and there’s a host of smaller tweaks and bug fixes including some changes to scripting that should enhance compatibility between the best Total War Warhammer 3 mods.

Total War Warhammer 3 patch 5.3 is out now on Steam. The game is also on sale at a 60% discount through Monday November 4, so you can grab the base version for just $23.99 / £19.99, with additional discounts on most DLC as well. Head here to take a look through the patch notes in full, courtesy of Creative Assembly.

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